How popular is the baby name Francisca in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Francisca.

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Popularity of the baby name Francisca


Posts that mention the name Francisca

Popular baby names in Portugal, 2022

Flag of Portugal
Flag of Portugal

The country of Portugal, located in southwestern Europe, shares a border with only Spain.

Last year, Portugal welcomed more than 95,000 babies. The most popular names among these babies? Maria and Francisco.

Here are Portugal’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2022:

Girl Names

  1. Maria, 5,047 baby girls
  2. Alice, 1,304
  3. Leonor, 1,213
  4. Matilde, 1,183
  5. Benedita, 973
  6. Carolina
  7. Beatriz
  8. Margarida
  9. Francisca
  10. Camila

Boy Names

  1. Francisco, 1,761 baby boys
  2. Afonso, 1,284
  3. João, 1,263
  4. Tomás, 1,244
  5. Duarte, 1,230
  6. Lourenço
  7. Santiago
  8. Martim
  9. Miguel
  10. Gabriel

The news release noted that Camila was new to the girls’ top 10, and that the names at the bottom of the girls’ top 100 were Áurea, Kiara, Vera, and Raquel.

It also mentioned that Manuel, José, and António ranked 20th, 21st and 28th (respectively) on the boys’ list.

The last time I posted rankings for Portugal, in 2015, the top two names were Maria and João.

Sources: Confira os nomes mais populares de 2022 – IRN, Saiba quais os nomes mais escolhidos para os bebés portugueses em 2022 – CNN Portugal

Image: Adapted from Flag of Portugal (public domain)

Name quotes #113: Oscar, Mackenzie, Miro

double quotation mark

It’s time for another batch of name quotes!

From a recent Daily Mirror article about schoolteachers Lainey Clarke and Ben Hubbard, who live in Buckinghamshire with their newborn…plus two spirits named Dave and Andy:

Dave even helped them when it came to deciding baby names.

“Every name we liked we’d then remember a naughty school kid we’d taught — it was a nightmare,” laughs Ben.

“We did a spirit box session [one person asks questions and another sits blindfolded with headphones on and relays messages from the spirit world] and the word Apollo was spoken. We listened back after he was born and were stunned to find that Dave had named our baby.”

From a Today.com article published earlier this year about like-named twins who married like-named twins:

Identical twins Briana and Brittany, 35, married identical twins Josh [Joshua] and Jeremy Salyers, 37, and now they’re introducing the world to their babies, who are so genetically similar that the cousins are more like brothers.

[…]

The Salyers are parents to Jett, who turned 1 in January, and Jax, who will turn 1 in April, and the cousins share more than the same first initial. Their unique situation makes them genetic brothers.

(Many U.S twins born in the early 2000s were also given similar names.)

From a recent Morley Kert woodworking video, part of a discussion between Morley and a male client named Mackenzie who he’d just met in-person:

Morley: “So I have something I need to tell you.”

Mackenzie: “Oh?”

Morley: “I fully assumed from your name that you were female.”

Mackenzie: “I think a lot of people do. Technically, technically, 52% of Mackenzies are female now. Which is — we’re losing the battle.”

(I’m curious where Mackenzie found that number, because the balance between male and female babies named Mackenzie hasn’t been close to 50% since the mid-1970s.)

Graph of the usage of the baby name Mackenzie in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Mackenzie

From a 2008 Jezebel post about about celebrity baby names:

To try to find out if celebrity kids can outrun their ridiculous names, MSNBC turns to Peaches Geldof, the celebutante who, in 2006, claimed, “I hate ridiculous names, My weird name has haunted me all my life.” Apparently, Peaches has made peace with her wacky moniker over the past few years, recently telling a reporter “It haunted me in my youth, but now I like it. I always got teased about it at primary school, being named after a fruit. Now people find it appealing. I like my name. I think it’s sexy and unusual.”

From the 2004 article “A Real Gem: Pop artist Ruby Mazur leads charmed life in LV” in the Las Vegas Sun:

Classic rock is pouring through Mazur’s spacious home, his 250-pound Newfoundland, Zeus, is circling the commotion and the artist’s 16-year-old twin sons, Cezanne and Miro, visiting from Vienna, are glancing over with a smile.

[…]

Now living in the golfing community of Rhodes Ranch, Mazur can sit back and scan his past and future. Two of his children — 18-year-old son Matisse and his daughter, actress and model Monet Mazur — are grown.

[Mazur, whose children are named after four famous artists — just like the Ninja Turtles, coincidentally — designed the cover art for thousands of albums during the 1970s.]

From a 2015 article about Anglo-Saxon personal names in History Today:

In the century before the Conquest, Scandinavian names had become so common in some areas that, not only had names such as Toki and Gyða been incorporated into the naming stock, but hybrid names had developed, creating truly Anglo-Scandinavian names, like Ælfcytel (combining Old English Ælf-, ‘elf’, and Old Norse -kettill, ‘cauldron’).

[This source also made an appearance in quotes #110.]

A name-change story (contributed by a Texas woman named Melanie) from a recent Washington Post article about changing babies’ names:

We named our second daughter Francisca. We called to tell my parents. My mother, who sounded disappointed, asked, “What was your second choice?” We told her Amelia. Mom told us that Amelia was her mother’s sister’s name. We said that was nice and moved on to calling other relatives. When we called my sister in law and told her we named our daughter Francisca, she said, “That’s funny, I had a dream you named the baby Amelia.” So right then the baby’s name was changed to Amelia.

For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.

What gave the baby name Eulalia a boost in 1893?

Infanta Eulalia of Spain (1864-1958)
Infanta Eulalia

According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Eulalia saw a distinct spike in the early 1890s:

  • 1895: 34 baby girls named Eulalia
  • 1894: 39 baby girls named Eulalia
  • 1893: 55 baby girls named Eulalia
  • 1892: 19 baby girls named Eulalia
  • 1891: 20 baby girls named Eulalia

The spike is mirrored in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) data:

  • 1895: 81 people named Eulalia
  • 1894: 92 people named Eulalia
  • 1893: 156 people named Eulalia
  • 1892: 59 people named Eulalia
  • 1891: 46 people named Eulalia

What caused it?

Spain’s 29-year-old Infanta Eulalia, whose full name at birth was María Eulalia Francisca de Asís Margarita Roberta Isabel Francisca de Paula Cristina María de la Piedad. (The name Eulalia is derived from the ancient Greek word eulalos, meaning “well spoken.”)

In 1893, she visited the U.S. to attend the Chicago World’s Fair — officially the “World’s Columbian Exposition” — held in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America.

This Columbus connection made the fair’s organizers eager to host a member of the Spanish royal family as a guest of honor. So Queen Isabella II of Spain sent her youngest daughter, Eulalia, to represent the family.

Even before Eulalia appeared at the fair on June 7, she attracted U.S. media attention over the 49 days she spent traveling to various places (Puerto Rico, Cuba, Washington DC, and New York) along the way to Chicago.

Illustration of Infanta Eulalia that ran in U.S. newspapers in May of 1893.
Illustration that ran in U.S. newspapers in May, 1893

Once she finally arrived, she was followed closely by the media. Newspapers like the Chicago Tribune offered daily updates on Eulalia and her various activities (e.g., parades, banquets, concerts).

However, despite the glowing reports on the front pages, the Tribune began carrying references to misunderstandings and insinuations of friction over matters of etiquette, precedence, and, especially, the Princess’ cavalier attitude toward arrangements made for her.

In fact, at the end of her “brief but not altogether satisfactory” visit, the Tribune went so far as to say the efforts put in by those who’d entertained Eulalia and her entourage were akin to “seeds flung away on barren ground.”

…All this press coverage, both positive and negative, gave the name a lot of extra exposure during 1893. And this resulted in more U.S. parents naming their babies “Eulalia” the same year.

What are your thoughts on the name Eulalia? Would you use it for a modern-day baby?

Sources:

Princess baby names: Beatrix, Irene, Margriet, Maria

Princess Juliana and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands had a total of 4 children, all girls:

  1. Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard (b. January, 1938)
  2. Irene Emma Elisabeth (b. August, 1939)
  3. Margriet Francisca (b. January, 1943)
  4. Maria Christina “Marijke” (b. February, 1947)

The middle daughters were both named with current events in mind:

  • Irene, born just before World War II began, was named after the Greek goddess of peace. According to Prince Bernhard, “we chose Irene, which means peace, because of the serious international situation.” Here’s how one newspaper put it:

    So now against all the war machines and bombers and the marching millions, there stands a little baby, named Irene, to personify the tiny hope that lies within the hearts of the millions, the hope of peace.

  • Margriet, born during WWII, “was named after the marguerite flower, the national symbol of resistance [to Nazi Germany] in the Netherlands.” (The family was taking refuge in Canada during the war, and her hospital room “was decreed to be Dutch territory for the occasion so that the princess would be a Dutch citizen.”)

Which of these two names do you like more, Irene or Margriet?

Sources:

  • “Baby Princess Carried to Birth Registration.” Montreal Gazette 8 Aug. 1939: 7.
  • Goddard, Lance. Canada and the Liberation of the Netherlands, May 1945. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2005.
  • “So They Named Her Irene.” Meriden Daily Journal 18 Aug. 1939: 6.